Empathy is a great gift to offer to others, but is it possible to have empathy for yourself?

When I am working with people I am a very empathetic person! My life experiences and dealing with the experiences in the moment has provided me with the tools I need to have to offer empathy to others!

The greatest components of empathy to me are listening, understanding, compassion and having dealt with my own stuff so that I can listen, understand and have compassion!

What is the definition of empathy and how to show it:

Showing Empathy

To show empathy is to identify with another’s feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of another. The ability to empathize is directly dependent on your ability to feel your own feelings and identify them.

If you have never felt a certain feeling, it will be hard for you to understand how another person is feeling. This holds equally true for pleasure and pain. If, for example, you have never put your hand in a flame, you will not know the pain of fire. If you have not experienced sexual passion, you will not understand its power. Similarly, if you have never felt rebellious or defiant, you will not understand those feelings. Reading about a feeling and intellectually knowing about it is very different than actually experiencing it for yourself.

Among those with an equal level of innate emotional intelligence, the person who has actually experienced the widest range and variety of feelings — the great depths of depression and the heights of fulfillment, for example, — is the one who is most able to empathize with the greatest number of people from all walks of life. On the other hand, when we say that someone “can’t relate” to other people, it is likely because they haven’t experienced, acknowledged or accepted many feelings of their own.